Editing Dynamic HTML (section)


{{Short description|Coding interactive or animated websites}}
{{how-to|date=January 2025}}
{{Html series}}

'''Dynamic HTML''', or '''DHTML''', is a term which was used by some browser vendors to describe the combination of [[HTML]], [[Style sheet (web development)|style sheet]]s and [[Dynamic web page#Client-side scripting|client-side scripts]] ([[JavaScript]], [[VBScript]], or any other supported scripts) that enabled the creation of interactive and animated documents.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Document Object Model FAQ|url=https://www.w3.org/DOM/faq.html#DHTML-DOM|access-date=2022-02-16|website=W3C |date=October 22, 2003}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.w3.org/Style/#dynamic|title=Web Style Sheets|website=W3C|access-date=7 April 2018 |date=22 July 1999}}</ref> The application of DHTML was introduced by [[Microsoft]] with the release of [[Internet Explorer 4]] in 1997.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2020-07-19 |title=DHTML {{!}} A Quick Glance of DHTML with Components, Features, Need |url=https://www.educba.com/dhtml/ |access-date=2022-10-13 |website=EDUCBA |language=en-US |first=Priya |last=Pedamkar}}</ref>{{Unreliable source?|date=November 2022}}

DHTML (Dynamic HTML) allows scripting languages, such as JavaScript, to modify variables and elements in a web page's structure, which in turn affect the look, behavior, and functionality of otherwise "static" HTML content after the page has been fully loaded and during the viewing process. Thus the dynamic characteristic of DHTML is the way it functions while a page is viewed, not in its ability to generate a unique page with each page load.

By contrast, a [[dynamic web page]] is a broader concept, covering any web page generated differently for each user, load occurrence, or specific variable values. This includes pages created by client-side scripting and ones created by [[server-side scripting]] (such as [[PHP]], [[Python (programming language)|Python]], [[JavaServer Pages|JSP]] or [[ASP.NET]]) where the [[web server]] generates content before sending it to the client.

DHTML is the predecessor of [[Ajax (programming)|Ajax]] and DHTML pages are still request/reload-based. Under the DHTML model, there may not be any interaction between the client and server after the page is loaded; all processing happens on the client side. By contrast, Ajax extends features of DHTML to allow the page to initiate network requests (or 'subrequest') to the server even after page load to perform additional actions. For example, if there are multiple [[Tab (interface)|tabs]] on a page, the pure DHTML approach would load the contents of all tabs and then dynamically display only the one that is active, while AJAX could load each tab only when it is really needed.